"Artificial Wombs Aren’t a Sci-Fi Horror Story"

[minoanmiss]

"But that doesn’t make them any less meaningful of an advance."

https://slate.com/technology/2020/01/artificial-wombs-science-fiction-pregnancy-premature.html

Comments

[lemonsharks]

It got me at baby-in-a-bag, like taking home a new goldfish. Six bags of babies! So many babies! For the home baby tank!

[conuly]

I still can't get over how much medical science seems to have progressed not even within my lifetime, but within my memory.

[lemonsharks]

Seriously. My BFF and my GF were both premies (in the 70s and 80s, respectively), and they both very nearly died several times.

[conuly]

I'm glad they didn't! (And... if I remember correctly, we'd already greatly improved tech for premies, so they avoided the blindness that plagued so many premature infants just a generation earlier.)

[hitchhiker]

i was thinking "only a guy would consider artificial wombs a horror story" but no, a woman wrote that! i guess i got my view of them from bujold, as an unalloyed good thing.

[amaebi]

Amen.

[franklanguage]

There are 9 billion people on the planet right now; glad I'm the only person who thinks we've reached critical mass.

[minoanmiss]

The human population of Planet Earth is a complex issue. I think efforts to slow our growth are more usefully handled at the contraceptive level (especially taking into account Amartya Sen's comment that "The most effective contraceptive is educating women") and at the societal level (creating and unobstructing opportunities for women to use that education, and not preventing access to reproductive health) than at the level of telling the parent of a prematurely born child, "We could save your baby, but in the interest of curbing overpopulation we're going to let them die painfully." (Or of saying, "we shouldn't send aid after a natural disaster in X non-European country, we need for those people to die off", or of telling a Black woman "society would be better off if you were forcibly sterilized," both of which have been told to me, and influence on my perspective on the subject.)

[franklanguage]

I don't recall bringing race into the discussion; if anything, the white "majority" population has notably helped said population explode for most of the 20th century.

And I agree with the quote from Amartya Sen that most of the history of humans seems to be devoted to keeping women in the dark. But as far as the racial overtones: let's not even go there.

[minoanmiss]

I wasn't saying you specifically did -- my point was that in discussions of overpopulation people often say "we need fewer people and This Group or That Group are the people we need less of," and citing examples, which, my personal history being what it is, have tended to be ones that include race. I mean, I can't "go there," I'm always there.

But from how I see it there is no group of people already born whose existence I find dismissable, so for that reason and more I can't find it a bad thing to improve treatment for premature babies.

[corylea]

I mean, I can't "go there," I'm always there.

*sigh* *hug* I wish I believed in a Heaven where you'd get your just reward for putting up with racist and sexist bullshit for your entire life. I'm afraid all I've got is extra hugs. *hugs you hard*

[minoanmiss]

BTW hugs you tightly Thank you, a lot. :)

[lavendertook]

"Let's not even go there."

Lemme guess--you're white? Because only white people think race is an optional topic when talking about populations as being too much and how to limit them. Because we're living in a time when white supremacy thrives on the racist fear that white people will soon be in the minority and fear population growth among people of color.

And really, your comment has added nothing to the topic at hand and if you meant it to, you have not done the work to connect it to the topic, so why make it here?

[cereta]

Perhaps you have missed the 32985 panicked "the Muslims/Mexicans/other brown people are out breeding us!" articles everywhere from respected publications to youtube. Race is very much relevant.

[sabotabby]

You can't not go there.

Most attempts at controlling "overpopulation" are aimed at controlling racialized people, from sterilization to genocide. It's inherently part of the conversation.

[sugarandlime]

did you reply to the wrong entry somehow??
because I'm struggling to figure out how an article about a really exciting developing technology that could assist women through difficult or life threatening pregnancies and/or improve long term health outcomes for prematurely delivered babies has any relevance to population control.

unless you're just a eugenicist looking for fights to lose, in which case minoanmiss's comments about race weren't off the mark in the slightest. If you're arguing for eugenics under the dogwhistle of "population control" you are unquestionably the one who brought race into the discussion, and you look like a dipshit for trying to argue otherwise.

P.S. like most nazis, it seems like you don't read very well, but here's the first google result I found searching "debunking overpopulation myths."
https://www.vox.com/the-big-idea/2017/12/12/16766872/overpopulation-exaggerated-concern-climate-change-world-population

have a shitty day!

[gingicat]

The more I think about it, the more I think you must have, somehow, commented to the wrong entry, because you're connected to someone I trust entirely, and a member of thisfinecrew. Please reply.

[cereta]

As someone who was born six weeks premature (albeit without significant health complications), I'm trying to parse your comment in some way other than, "babies like you were should not be helped to live because there's too many people already." Please, tell me I'm wrong.

(I'm not even going to get into what you might think of the efforts I went through to have the child in my icon, because I've had enough people tell me how selfish and egotistical and generally awful I was to use science to have a baby to last me a lifetime.)

[franklanguage]

Having to reply to this dogpile first thing in the morning is definitely not my idea of a good time, but I'll try:

• No, I'm not singling out any individual or group in my comment, and I'm sorry everybody took it that far. It's a tricky question, and most people want more individuals on this planet for one reason or another; like it or not, there will be nine or ten billion humans on earth in a few years.

• There are some who say—and have been saying since the early 20th century—that the earth's resources are becoming strained by human activity; this is not pointing to any racial or ethnic group. Plenty of others insist that human creativity is limitless, and will always find a way to stretch those resources.

• I have not used the word "selfish" regarding anyone who wants to have children—plenty of people have called me "selfish" for being childfree. Most normal humans have the urge to procreate, and it's always been considered the norm. Because many women are choosing to put off childbirth longer now than in the past, fertility clinics are booming and there's a whole fertility industry. This is a good thing from the standpoint of job creation.

I'll show myself out now!

[corylea]

I was born seven weeks premature in 1958, when this was a big deal, and I was expected to die. A doctor told my aunt not to get attached to me, because I wasn't going to make it.

My life was saved by -- hold onto your hats -- hiccups. Premature babies have such immature respiratory systems that they have trouble getting enough oxygen to survive, but hiccups forced me to breathe.

I weighed 3 lbs, 11 oz at birth, which isn't tiny NOW but was a big deal in 1958. Since I'm 5' 10" and hefty, it's hard to believe I could possibly have started out that small. :-)

So, yeah, fellow premie says hi.

[cereta]

Hah! I was 3 lbs 11oz, too. I was six weeks premature in '69, and while my (adoptive) parents were told there were no serious health complications, Catholic Charities skipped over the first couple on the list for a girl because my mother had been a nurse, and would be better able to handle any future health issues. If I hadn't been premature, I'd be Theresa Kramer.

[lemonsharks]

rubynye I am so sorry for not keeping my mouth shut on this one.


franklanguage, please consider:

If a bunch of people in a social group you otherwise respect want to f-i-t-e FITE you over something you've said, it might actually be because you've said something offensive.

Overpopulation is a racist, eugenicist myth. You brought race and eugenics into it when you brought it up.

Have some scholarly sources to self-educate:

Facts Views Vis Obgyn. 2013; 5(4): 281–291.: Population percentages have been on the decline for several years now, and the most impactful way to preserve the earth for future generations is through large-scale change in consumption in wealthy nations

Chinese Journal of Population Research And Environment, 2016: The overpopulation fallacy: Why the overpopulation fallacy is racist, anti-poor, and anti-developing-nation.

Population Research Institute, 2013: Debunking the overpopulation myth

And some more lay-friendly sources:

Chicago Reporter, 2019: ~overpopulation~ is an ecofascist dogwhistle. You're concern-trolling from the left, maybe, but your argument is right up there with right-wing nationalists' favorite talking points. Maybe think about that.

Vox, 2017: a brief history of eugenics and racism as related to claims of "overpopulation"

[minoanmiss]

I think there are several here I haven't read yet! saves these links to read

[conuly]

The population is expected to stop growing soon, and start declining by 2050. If you're terribly concerned about resource usage, the best thing is to agitate for people in developed countries to act smarter, rather than to worry about the sheer population in numbers.

[bikergeek]

I don't think the existence of artificial wombs is going to dissuade all that many people from having a baby the old-fashioned way.

What made them a horror story in The Matrix and Brave New World and assorted other SF dystopias was the fact that it was the near-mandatory way to have a baby.

But if they're an option, they could be very useful in the case of certain kinds of high-risk pregnancy. Exactly what those would be, I'm not sure, but I have faith that medical science will figure it out.

[cmcmck]

Some of us can't do that of course but it comes too late for me. :o(

[amaebi]

I think it's that in The Matrix and Brave New World the incubation was a form of production that was not only involuntary, but not for the benefit of bio parents.

[amaebi]

"The letter writer, a physician, wrote at length of his concerns, including his fear that `it might replace the role of a woman in natural pregnancy.'”

The letter writer, a physician, must be continually traumatized by men having no role after the first moments of a natural pregnancy.

[acelightning]

That premature baby who has a painful, possibly fatal, but treatable congenital condition (and who, when she's not screaming in pain and fear has the most luminous smile you've ever seen) may grow up to invent cures for congenital conditions, or an FTL drive, or a system of government that works, or a form of contraception that's more foolproof than abstinence, or a way to end the distribution problems that cause world hunger when we're already capable of growing enough food for our billions... or even a cure for prejudice, xenophobia, or gullibility. Or she may grow up to be a performer like Dimash, whose talent seems superhuman and who brings joy to her audience.

(I was a premature baby in 1947, but I didn't need oxygen badly enough to put me at risk for retinopathy - I was just undersized for a few months.)

[corylea]

Thanks for the link! This formerly endangered premie is glad to know about it.

[vettecat]

I have trouble imagining how anyone could see this as a bad thing, but I was also disappointed in reading the article to see that it really wouldn't be an artifical womb a la Bujold.